Although fossil fuels are in ample supply as a resource and although oil technology exists for sea floor drilling to a depth of two miles, extracting and transporting fossil fuels is akin to playing Russian roulette. For example, strip mining, deep shaft mining, acid rain and oil spills all scar and pollute the earth's surface. Accordingly, more and more people are realizing that dependance upon fossil fuels for generating electricity should be minimized and ideally reduced.
As fossil fuels become more scarce, expensive and unavailable for a variety of reasons, more and more people are realizing that dependance upon fossil fuels for generation of electricity should be minimized and ideally reduced.
Apart from nuclear generated electricity, much interest exists in generating electricity utilizing renewable resources, such as wind and water power. Most traditional attempts at harnessing the wind to generate electricity include the use of windmills. Although traditional windmills have proved somewhat satisfactory, their use is limited to areas in which a reasonable amount of wind blows, such as mountain tops and western plains. These areas are often remote from civilization to accommodate the size of the windmills and their supporting superstructures. Additionally, windmills are typically noisy and aesthetically unappealing.
There are, however, many instances and locations in which particularly air flow and also water flow, could be harnessed to generate electricity if the proper generating apparatus were available. For example, airplanes in flight, moving trains, cars, trucks and buses all generate wind flow passed their structures. In addition, a considerable amount of wind is generally always present on and about high rise buildings. In all these cases, if a low profile, horizontally disposed wind generating apparatus could be provided, a substantial amount of electrical energy could be generated, enough perhaps to make the attached object more energy self-sufficient.
In conjunction with wind and solar power which will definitely contribute to an ever increasing lessened dependency on fossil fuels, it is hoped that hydrogen fusion and perhaps even cold fusion will serve as alternative sources of energy. The use of these alternative sources of energy will be a many fold benefit to the planet.
The need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is finally being recognized with the advent of electrically-powered automobiles. The new generation of electric cars, which will comprise two percent of the vehicles sold by 1998, utilize conventional 12 volt batteries for power. Although these electric cars reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, they are presently capable of only very limited ranges due to the rapid drain of power on their batteries, and thus require continual recharging.
Research efforts are being made to develop better batteries which will last longer between charges, although still requiring recharging, as well as providing electricity pumps which would be easily accessible, similar to existing gas stations. However, electricity pumps would create large daytime drains on public electric utilities when demand for electricity is already high.
Accordingly, what is needed is an auger shaped, fluid medium engaging member for an electrical generator apparatus which can generate sufficient quantities of electricity and which can be housed in a reasonably compact enclosure, to enable the apparatus to be mounted in mobile installations, such as airplanes, trains, trucks, buses and cars, masts and upper super structures of power or sail vessels, as well as in more compact areas in which a traditional windmill won't fit, such as between floors or on top of roofs of a high rise building or in a motor vehicle.
Such an auger shaped, fluid medium engaging member allows for an in-line, auger driven charging system for utilizing the wind flows created by the movement of vehicles such as cars, trucks, and even boats, to replenish electricity drains on the vehicle's battery as the vehicle is in motion, thereby reducing the need for continual recharging and extending the vehicle's battery life.